Flight Daily News

FARNBOROUGH 2008: BAE unveils production Herti

BAE Systems has unveiled the production variant of its Herti unmanned autonomous system (UAS) at Farnborough.

Herti has been developed with both military and civil applications in mind, with the production airframe manufactured by Slingsby Aviation in the UK.

Developed from a design by J&AS Aero Design of Poland, production standard Herti features a new multi-payload turret from Polytech AB of Sweden, which enables integration of alternative sensors to meet varying customers’ operational requirements.

BAE Systems has completed an extensive flight trial with three development aircraft to verify the mission system, which also included night operations and fully autonomous landings.

Herti has also undertaken a number of demonstrations at operational RAF bases, including in Afghanistan, using a new containerised ground control station and remote viewing terminal to help prove capabilities.

Sharing a similar airframe and system components as Herti, Fury is the armed reconnaissance and Close Air Support (CAS) spin-off. The system is shown publicly for the first time at Farnborough.

Fury features a new stores management system and has recently undertaken a successful guided launch of a live weapon during trials. BAE Systems is jointly developing Fury with Thales and it is armed with the new Thales Lightweight Multi-Role Missile (LMM).

Fury project director Chris Clarkson says: “With a high degree of autonomy, it combines many of the already proven elements of our other unmanned platforms, including small logistic footprint and low operator workload with a reliable and highly accurate weapons system.”